Minimum raise push blurs lines between donors' apparatus and Cuomo's

KINGSTON — Is Gov. Andrew Cuomo joining a major labor union's push to raise the minimum wage, or is the union putting as-yet-untold amounts of time and money into a boosting a gubernatorial proposal?

Consider what happened in a former armory in this city's Midtown neighborhood on Wednesday morning, the latest in a series of rallies that the Democratic governor is headlining as part of an RV tour sponsored by the Mario Cuomo Campaign for Economic Justice.

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Over 100 people waved signs and listened to speeches by George Gresham, the president of Service Employees International Union local 1199, and then Cuomo himself. They made the case for increasing the minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15 an hour. Cameras rolled. The governor urged the crowd to “fight the good fight” for the wage hike, as well as a system of paid family leave. He told reporters after the speeches that he was hopeful legislators would enact his bills on each.

As an elected official, Cuomo often travels around the state to make speeches about issues that are important to him. He was surrounded by government aides, including one who operated the sound system and served as an announcer, all attending in their official capacity, according to an administration spokesman.

The use of outside groups to buttress an official agenda is becoming increasingly common in state politics, and this is the second time during his five years in office that Cuomo has relied on an outside group for support. But the practice comes with questions about how the work of officials and interest groups overlap, and how rules requiring disclosure and prohibiting gifts apply, even as Cuomo himself pushes for greater transparency.

“Clearly the governor is coordinating with this outside entity, and the governor's political operatives seem to have basically been set up and guiding it,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York. “This is setting up a shadow government and it blurs the line between private campaigning and public policy. The goal is an admirable one, but the way it is being done gives us pause.”

Lerner's group this week sent a formal request for the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board to examine the Campaign for One New York, a nonprofit group that Mayor Bill de Blasio set up to support his agenda. The group has voluntarily disclosed its donors, and a POLITICO New York analysis last year found that more than 60 percent of them had other business pending before City Hall.

The driving force behind the MCCEJ is Gresham's 1199, which represents health care workers in the state. It is a longstanding Cuomo ally, boosting him during his last three statewide campaigns and opening its check book in 2011 in support of a Medicaid reform plan that its leaders helped craft. Gresham chairs the MCCEJ, and has rode with Cuomo around the state on the bus. The international SEIU has been pushing a “Fight for $15” around the country, and Cuomo's own advocacy has been in close concert with the union's efforts.

“This is a moment when we hope to make history, a moment where we return the state back to working people, a moment when we return the dignity and pride of hard work,” Gresham said during Wendesday's rally.

He told POLITICO New York that the MCCEJ is a “broad coalition” drawing funds from labor groups and others.

Austin Shafran, a spokesman for MCCEJ — whose firm, Metropolitan Public Strategies, also works on behalf of Cuomo's re-election campaign — said the donors include 1199, the SEIU international organization, its 32BJ affiliate, the Hotel Trades Council, the labor-backed Amalgamated Bank and the Healthcare Education Project, a joint venture of 1199 and the Greater New York Hospital Association.

Cuomo did not solicit any of the funds, Shafran said. The governor said this week that all such groups should disclose the source of their funds.

Shafran declined to immediately say how much each donor was giving; Gresham and another 1199 official also declined to say how much it was kicking in, but Gresham said some of the support was the result of in-kind contributions of staff and other resources.

“The campaign is registered with JCOPE and will be following all applicable state and federal laws and disclosure requirements,” Shafran said.

SEIU officials say their push for a minimum wage hike is in line with their commitment to advancing the economic lot of workers. Cuomo, a Democrat, embraced the wage hike as he strengthens ties with the institutions in his progressive base after a lackluster re-election effort. (The governor says his advocacy has been consistent.)

Or, as Shafran put it, “This is part of a national movement that's been going on for years.”

But the groups supporting the Cuomo's effort have other business before the governor. Amalgamated Bank is chartered and regulated by the Department of Financial Services, a state agency that Cuomo controls. SEIU 1199 employs an army of lobbyists focused on New York's $63 billion Medicaid program, whose public funds support worker salaries. SEIU 32BJ pushes for prevailing wages and labor peace agreements — which mean union jobs — at publicly subsidized projects. The Hotel Trades Council is fighting Airbnb, the short-term rental site, and has an interest in legislation advanced by both sides that could work its way to Cuomo's desk.

Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group — which, like Lerner's Common Cause, discloses some, but not all, of its donors — said he was concerned about the potential for conflict.

“The tension that exists that if people are giving big money to a powerful elected official, what do they expect in return? That's the concern, in the same way it is with campaign contributions,” he said.

NOTE: This article has been changed to reflect that the Mario Cuomo Campaign for Economic Justice is a 501-(c)(4) group, not a 501-(c)(3) group as the group's spokesman initially stated.

"Based on inaccurate information from our lawyer, the campaign said it was a 501(c)(3), when in fact it has always been registered with JCOPE as a 501(c)(4)," the spokesman, Austin Shafran, wrote in a Thursday morning email. "Yesterday, the campaign publicly disclosed its donors well in advance of the next scheduled filing, and will continue to comply with all state and federal laws, including disclosure requirements."